Diamond Ranch rallies to beat Bonita in Hacienda Leaague

POMONA >> When you are losing, a goal-line stand has the potential to only delay the inevitable.

But in Diamond Ranch’s case on Thursday night, it was the turning point.

The Panthers stopped Bonita twice inside the 2-yard line midway through the third quarter and that proved to be a turning point as the Panthers finished off their Hacienda League championship with a 25-15 victory over visiting Bonita.

The win all but ensured Diamond Ranch (9-1 overall, 5-0 league) would get at least the No. 2 seed for the CIF-SS playoffs.

Bonita (6-4, 3-3) needs some help just to be considered as an at-large entry for the playoffs.

“That (goal line stand) was huge,” Diamond Ranch coach Roddy Layton said. “But the next problem is moving the ball out from there. We did and were able to play field position.”

Bonita was leading 15-10 in the third quarter but was stopped on back-to-back runs between the tackles on third- and fourth-and-goal.

“I don’t regret going for it, but I regret the play call,” Bonita coach Adrian Medrano said. “Everybody knew what we were going to do, and we did it anyway.”

Diamond Ranch got the ball out of trouble, thanks to a 32-yard leaping catch from Marcus Briscoe. The Panthers didn’t score on that drive but pinned Bonita into its own end.

Diamond Ranch eventually got the ball back again late in the third quarter at its own 16 and the 84-yard, 15-play drive that ate up 7:36 on the clock resulted in the go-ahead touchdown with 5:33 to play. On third-and-seven from the 11, Briscoe made a highlight catch in the back corner of the end zone to make it 18-15 after the two-point conversion.

“He’s done that a few times this year,” Layton said of Briscoe. “He’s a great talent and Xavier (Beltran, quarterback) has done a great job of throwing that ball into the trash can in the back of the end zone.”

Bonita, forced to pass, turned the ball over on downs and Diamond Ranch added an insurance touchdown with 1:58 left.

“They stacked the box (against the run) and we weren’t able to pass,” Medrano said.

Bonita quarterback Tanner Diebold completed five of his first 10 passes for 51 yards, but failed to complete any of his final eight attempts.

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Diamond Ranch slowed down Bonita back Jake Payton, who had an 80-yard touchdown run on the first play, but finished with 173 yards rushing on 18 carries, including only 13 yards on six carries in the second half.

“I’m proud of the way we battled,” Medrano said. “We played hard to the end.”

Diamond Ranch was led offensively by Daniel Garcia, who carried 25 times for 164 yards.

“Their line wore us down,” Medrano said. “They’re much bigger than us.”

It was an odd game in that Bonita led 13-10 on two Payton touchdown runs less than eight minutes into the game, then only two points were scored by either team for more than 34 minutes of playing time until Diamond Ranch’s final two touchdowns.